Search

The Hairpin — that lovely lady blog that makes you feel like you’re on the phone with your bestie and she’s talking just like a bestie would while making you pee your pants with laughter — has an excellent post called Ask an Abortion Provider, in which your new bestie explains the unknown side of being, umm, an abortion provider. Yeah. But it’s awesome and very cool, and I’m just gonna give you this little taste, and then you’re going to go read it, OK?

But “the remorseful patient” is the only patient whom your nice-but-then-surprisingly-conservative aunt is going to be like, “Well, I mean, I don’t believe in it, but if she was really sorry. And if she was married and it was crazy how it happened.” If you need help recruiting your aunt and others who are not quite on board with us no-hierarchy-of-abortion people yet, try my favorite fact for this situation: 65% of women who get abortions in this country are already moms! Smile, there’s a 65% chance your mother chose abortion because she wanted to make sure she could take care of her already-existing children, i.e., you. If that doesn’t work, take the “trend” angle and say how more evidence is showing that contraceptive sabotage is part of domestic violence. And just as no one is immune to contraception just straight up not working, no one is immune to those probably-apocryphal “I Didn’t Know I Was Pregnant” stories, so encourage their recounting and then bring it on home. Should these women be forced to have a baby, too? I’ll be seeing both of you at the potluck next week!